


Two Captains

by AChesireSmile



Series: The Other Life [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Companion Piece, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Kinda, mentions of 1940s Steve and Bucky, mentions of how my MCU goes on, mostly steve's pov, this is how Steve and Galatea meet before the Avenger's Initiative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AChesireSmile/pseuds/AChesireSmile
Summary: Steve Rogers meets a somebody in Hell's Kitchen when he decides to find a diner rather than his usual coffee shop. He steals her booth. She just keeps cropping back up in his life. And she's got a mean streak of clap backs for the Avenger's Initiative.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Galatea Winters, Steve Rogers & Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Other Life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1389808
Kudos: 4





	Two Captains

The woman in the leather jacket is looking down at Steve Rogers with a rather curious stare.

It is not very often people do stop to stare at him. But with the way she is looking at him, standing close to the booth table, ready to sit down on the opposite side of Steve, says a lot of things. Enough to tell him that she is a regular at the very least.

Especially when instead of asking him, she is asking the waitress on duty.

“Hey, Betty? Is this your way of telling me that I come here _too_ often now?”

Her voice is lower, huskier than Steve expects. But it is smooth and clear as bells with her articulate pronunciation.

With further study, the dame is opposite of everything that is from Steve’s old memories of swing skirts, batting eyelashes and sugary tones. But she smiles with something that reminds him of all the dames back in his time— careful judgement and almost entirely dismissive.

But that had been before the serum that had changed him physically.

People nowadays watch him in awe, raw disbelief or curious wonder. But this lady with her well-worn leather jacket, high waisted jeans and impressive looking heeled boots, she barely spared him any reaction. That is aside from the fact that this diner booth is her regular haunt and he had taken it for a lunch break in lieu of his regular coffee shop this time around.

Her hair had been pulled back into a long braid trailing down her back, messy and falling apart from how chaotically unruly it is with its curling thickness. And it is her eyes, so endlessly gray but with flecks of brown that smudge and blend into the gray that makes him itch for his pen and gradually filling notebook.

There is a glint of something else though, something dangerous and unsettling.

They are like the flintstones back when the Howling Commandos could not stand the cold in Germany and made fires with them. They are the gray skies over the fields and plains that were like winter wonderlands that goes on for miles across the more rural areas of Europe. Those same skies would have lightning whenever rain storms took to the weather.

Those eyes are unyielding and everything that makes him sit up a little straighter at attention.

They also remind Steve of Bucky, his oldest and best friend.

Because all in all, she did not seem all too displeased. She seemed rather amused. Those eyes are telling him to keep sitting, despite how she is playing herself off as someone who is offended for her booth being taken by another. The curl of her mouth is of a devilish but true of heart attitude. Some fragment of Bucky resonated within her that made Steve breathless.

Betty the waitress turned out to be the waitress that had told Steve to take any booth since she had been busy with another customer.

A young man, who shared the same olive skin tone and smile as his mother, is sitting at the counter with Betty at his side. He is also looking up with blushing cheeks as he waves at the woman in the leather jacket. The older woman in the bright apron and a flowery dress has a bright smile on her aged face when she realized who exactly called for her.

She approaches both Steve and the woman in the leather jacket.

“Well, well! It is so good to see you again, goddess!”

The lady stiffens at the nickname. But her smile is easy with the obvious fondness towards Betty shining in those umber eyes. She carefully drums her knuckles in a piano pattern on the dining table before she faces back to look to Steve. She winks at him, earning a dumbfounded blink from him. Her smile this time is all too amused and slightly wicked in good nature.

“I see Betty is trying to replace me, that’s all fine and dandy, I suppose,” she drawls, placing a hand over her heart in mock betrayal like she has been hurt.

Steve smiles now, “Sorry for taking the booth, this time, ma’am.”

She huffs, throwing her head back and her braid of raven black becomes a little messier in the process.

“Oh, come on now, Galatea,” Betty sighs dramatically, playing along, “this is a public diner, let the man have the booth for today.”

The woman has a laugh that is even more unexpected. It is low and smooth as her voice. But it resonates in Steve’s very bones. And it is not difficult at all to want to close his eyes and listen to it all day.

“Come now, Betty, I’m just messing with him. Not often that people come for my booth,” she winks at Steve again with another laugh leaving her.

The young man in a body that is nearly closing in on a hundred years of existence is tempted to ask her to sit with her. He is so entranced with her laugh as he had been caught up in those gray brown eyes. He would love to hear what stories she would have. Steve yearned for companionship as he had found some sort of kinship from the joking camaraderie between her and himself.

However, _Galatea_ is moving away, light footed in her level gait and towards the young man at the counter. She waves at Steve, no hard feelings and another smile to take him by surprise before she turns her attention to the young man.

“Elli, how are those calculations going, hm?”

… … … … … …………….

It takes another month but Steve sees her again. It had been entirely of coincidence.

After the constant pestering from the agents of the organization that has found and defrosted him, he just wanted some peace and quiet. With no best friend or close squad mates, and everything replaced with newer, modern things, the world is strange and he is still swimming in the maelstrom of unfamiliarity. The only things familiar enough to Steve Rogers is the notebook in his hands, the pen that is fiddled with in between his fingers, and the anonymity of no one else recognizing him in the streets of his city.

But gray eyes with striking ferocity, a smile that seems both secretive and vague with answers all at once, and the leather jacket around slender shoulders an armor all of itself, is quickly becoming a familiar thing to him as well. The jade necklace hanging between her clavicles is a new addition to her attire. But then again, Steve had not seen her for very long after their first encounter with one another to know that she had it in the first place or not at all yet.

Galatea is frequenting his coffee shop this time around.

“Hey there, booth stealer,” she greets.

They had made eye contact just as he sat down at a table just adjacent from her own table.

Steve has his notebook and pen in hand, a newly acquired gym membership pass stored in his wallet. He snaps his eyes upwards to find that devil may care smile and umber eyes all focused on him. The coffee he had ordered had just been set down on in front of him by a pretty waitress that had stared a little too long at him in _just_ wonder.

Galatea’s own mocha cappuccino is up to her lips.

Steve smiles, tipping his head to her before he replies, “Hello there, ma’am.”

Her mouth already graced her cup’s rim before she winks at him.

“I got called that often enough when I had been a captain during my time serving. I just prefer Galatea,” she sighs heavily, dramatically, before her smile returns as expected.

Steve straightens, the information piquing his interest enough. “Small world. I used to serve too… Steve Rogers.”

Galatea is sitting in the seat that is close to his own with the placement of their tables being just slightly diagonal from one another. He offers his hand to hers without any effort of having to stretch towards her.

Galatea has a grace that is just _unique_. Her languid movement has a uniform strength that only a soldier could ever have. But there is a smoothness in it as well that could only match something like a feline. It is the only way he can describe it as.

And her hands, small and delicate looking, yet calloused as his, grasps his with the all too familiar strength that he has in himself. It has him blinking in surprise. But Steve finds a familiarity in this strange world of a different time that he has awoken to as he keeps his hold on her hand for a moment longer.

“Winters, Galatea Winters,” her low voice is a melody, the steel behind her words another thing of familiarity.

There are no questions about what it was like in the past.

What Brooklyn used to be. What the war had been like. What secrets only he had discovered and known from his time of slowly taking HYDRA down and trying to win aforementioned war. What it is like to have so much time to pass by and having not been buried along with it. What it was like to lose Bucky, his nascent relationship with Peggy, or the rest of the people in his life back in the forties.

In fact, Galatea seemed to not recognize the power behind the name of Steve Rogers— Captain America, America’s Golden Boy, the Man with the Plan.

No, instead, Galatea learned of Steven Grant Rogers.

She had laughed at the fact that his birthday was smack dab on the fourth of July.

She had fondness in those eyes of endless gray, that reminded him so much of his best friend, whenever he regaled her of the times he got beat up for standing up for others or running head first into those brawls because he wanted to prove a point. She comforted him, claiming that he got a distant look on his face whenever their conversation turned a little darker, heavier, and it had been a genuine interaction from her.

Again, it reminded him that nothing is the same with the dames of his time.

Steve had been rather in awe of her when he learned that she had served in her homeland, Greece. He had never been there, asking her all sorts of questions about her country. And when he had learned that she is more well-traveled than he had ever been, he had been entranced with a wild curiosity that needed to satisfied.

She had smiled at him and answered all of his questions. She told him of her time in shrines and temples of Nepal. A mission that brought her team to the hot springs of the white terraces of Turkey called Pamukkale. But of all the things she would grant him knowledge of was Greece itself.

She told him of the island of white that housed the towns called Fira and Oia of Santorini. The shores of the Black Sea are just as black as it is said to be, healthy to embalm into one’s skin and just as gorgeous to see the sights. There are archeological sites yet to be fully recorded but had been explored by her team on surveillance missions.

A small church in Athens is what she used to call home due to her upbringing as an orphan. Athens is also home to the Acropolis and Panthenon structures. She knew them well, having explored them in her youth.

It all fascinated him.

But what enthralled him was her sharp aptitude. There, in the true black of her eyes, there is a knowing glint in her eyes of storm and something a little bitter in the bite of her words like she knows the experience herself.

“History is not everything, Steve Rogers. We make history and somehow, we let history define us. I would think that you of all people should know it better than anyone else.”

The two of them part that afternoon where her words follow him, even when he finally sleeps.

He dreams of Bucky. He dreams of a carnival with a malfunctioning flying car, his best friend in his uniform and the rank of sergeant on his arm and hat. He dreams of their time in Brooklyn, as kids, as teens, as young adults. He dreams of the fall from the train, the screams of Bucky and his own that echoed after.

He dreams of Peggy, Howard Stark, the Howling Commandos, his mother.

And somehow, he dreams of Galatea and another woman whose resemblance to Galatea is uncanny, eerily so. But the thing is, Steve had known that woman as a passerby. She had been a foreign dignitary attending a SHIELD meeting in regards of the camps, the secret underground laboratories, and other well known buildings that housed HYDRA in plain sight.

They had been all over the world.

Even in Greece.

The dignitary had been akin to the frigid ice that he had once been encased in and something with vengeful storm and vigilant fury underneath her skin. And she had those gray eyes with brown flecks that held a tragic wisdom in them.

He had been curious enough to ask about her from other operatives and it only led him to a conclusion that the dignitary went by a callsign that meant assassin in her country’s language. Steve never saw her after that one meeting.

But he remembered what she had said after the meeting had finished.

_History is only made through us_. _Let us be remembered in kind memory for we had allowed history to define us_.

… … … … … …………….

When Steve Rogers is visited by Nick Fury, Galatea is with him.

Sometimes, Steve is just the one who is working on the sand bags in the gym. He works off the bit of pent up energy that he used to spend on raiding HYDRA bases and fighting to save lives. And other times, Galatea agrees to spar with him.

Steve can tell that something is just writhing underneath her skin. Because she recognizes that he has something under his own.

He can tell from the way her fingers drum in the pattern of playing a piano, her nails would tap, tap, tap on the surface with a restless sort of energy. He can tell from the way her eyes seem to personify some all seeing, ravenous beast of ancient times.

It has an attentive, predatory stillness that he only ever saw in the eyes of survivors and in his mirror. He can tell from the way her shoulders tense at certain times, she had an otherworldly sense of someone having their eyes on her. She sometimes even seemed to mutter in her mother tongue that didn’t sound quite right, sometimes he was sure that she was actually speaking a completely different language.

Steve never won against Galatea.

Galatea has many fighting styles. The retired soldier had acquired enough that whenever they spar, she has a different style that he has never encountered and has not experienced, yet. He laughs at how hard she hits, she smiles whenever he compliments her for each one she lands.

But it was not because they were not equals in strength and skill. It was because he could hit just as hard, land each of his strikes, could match her in speed, strength and determination. They found their souls bared to each other with nothing but truth and understanding.

And when Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, visits the gym one day, it is intense, to say the least.

“Captain Rogers,” the man’s deep voice is curt in his greeting, not exactly the warmest, and most certainly not friendly.

Steve stops punching his stress of not being able to sleep once more as the heavy steps of the other man approaches with gradual closeness. Galatea is unwrapping her fingers from the same wrapping tape that is around Steve’s, her gray eyes narrow in on the man and her foot taps lightly in defensive aggravation.

The distrust is immediate.

Steve breathes, steadying himself, “Director…”

Nick Fury spares only a glance to Galatea. His eye does not linger for too long; it returns to Steve and his chuckle is low. He offers files to Steve, the glowing blue box in the photo is offensively bright even in just a photograph.

“We have run into some trouble, Captain.”

Galatea stuffs her own bag with her belongings, chuckling under her breath.

“Something funny, ma’am?” Fury questions with a finely honed edge in his tone.

Galatea hefts up one of the punching bags over one shoulder as she slings over her bag on the other. Her umber eyes resemble the striking of the flintstones, a fire beginning to build, beginning to burn something fierce.

This has Fury’s attention. He raises an eyebrow with curiosity beginning to take root. Whether it is from the fact that Galatea is a whole foot shorter than Steve, or the compact size she is, the display of strength from casually holding a bag full of sand is not something most humans could dream of having.

“There is always a war. You people never cease to go without causing it… You ruin the world, by yourself and nothing else,” wisdom laced with sorrowful history is prominent in her tone, nothing but truth.

Fury tilts his head, unable to form a response but instead a question, “And who are you?”

Fury obviously knows her, or at least enough to know that she is not just a sparring partner, Steve can tell. The furrow in her brow, the slant of her mouth shows her distaste for the director.

“Professional kinesthesiast,” she replies without a pause in thought.

Steve blinks. Fury does too.

Galatea chuckles again, not haughtily but rather neutral in her judgement or just boredom, “Body movement. And I take it as a challenge with distance and behind a scope.”

The feral smile on her face is nothing but frosty wildness and fiery madness. She was always infuriatingly good at being vague, even with Steve.

“We are just here to clean up your mess, but I’m not interested in fighting your wars any longer,” she finishes.

And she is leisurely stalking away, with the sand bag still hauled over her shoulder and her gym bag in the other hand.

… … … … … …………….

Just when he thought things could not become even more bizarre, Galatea Winters proves Steve Rogers wrong. He sees her again when it is the dawn of the Avengers’ Initiative and the events of the Chitauri invading. And she is not alone.


End file.
